


Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?

by AdelaideArcher



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Het, Severus Snape Fest 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5892853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaideArcher/pseuds/AdelaideArcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a disastrous first Victory Ball, awkwardness descends on Professor Snape and Professor Granger. Years later, New Year’s Eve gives Severus the chance to make things right again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?

**" _Should_ Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?"**

_Awkward_ was an understatement. Of course, being Severus Snape, no one had the faintest idea exactly how uncomfortable the situation made him. Not for nothing had he developed the best poker face in the wizarding world. It was a small benefit derived from years of enforced Occlumency; neither the Dark Lord nor Albus Dumbledore needed to be privy to _all_ of his thoughts and emotions, though they both laboured under the delusion that they owned his soul. 

However, awkward it most certainly was. 

He wasn't sure what had possessed him on the night of the first Victory Ball. He hadn't been drunk; he definitely hadn't been high. Those days were long in his post-Halloween-’81 misery and guilt fuelled bender past. Three glasses of a rather splendid Sancerre did not excuse or explain baring his soul (on a park bench by the Cam, of all the clichés) to Hermione Granger.

He'd told her truths that he had barely realised himself. All the sordid details of his past life; his feelings, such as they were these days, for Lily Potter; his hatred for Dumbledore, and his horror at the atrocities both of his masters had demanded of him. He'd told her _everything_ , but she hadn't even flinched. She'd held his bloody hand, for the love of Merlin. She'd patted his back. Hermione Granger had sympathised, empathised, understood. And then she'd kissed him; deeply, passionately and thoroughly. 

“I'm here with you,” she'd murmured. “I'm not going anywhere.”

There was only one course of action. 

Severus Snape ran a metaphorical mile. 

**

 

Severus watched, irritated beyond reason, as Filius Flitwick waved his wand merrily, sending baubles, tinsel and other trappings of Christmas back to a large box in the corner of the Great Hall. Thank God; that was Christmas over for another year. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Minerva deep in conversation with Professor Granger. He silently congratulated himself for getting through Granger’s first term on staff without a mishap – probably because he'd only spoken to her when he absolutely had to. He'd not been able to help sneaking the occasional glance at her, but the sheer fury in her eyes when he mistimed his gaze and accidentally met hers had discouraged him from looking at her too much. 

He wondered what she and Minerva were discussing so avidly. He wondered if she ever thought about that night all those years ago – seven and a half to be precise. He knew it right down to the damn day. He wondered what she'd done for those seven years, although he'd made sure he knew everything that was public knowledge. Most of all, he wondered if she knew how many regrets he had. 

***

Severus sighed. “Yes, Minerva?”

“Severus; have a drink.”

“Why? Do you think I'll need one?”

“Always suspicious, aren't you?” Minerva passed Severus a heavy goblin-made cut crystal tumbler containing a generous three fingers of Laphroaig single malt. 

“What are your plans for Hogmanay?” she asked, seemingly out of nowhere. 

“Small talk, Minerva?” Severus sounded amused. “I have very few plans, but they involve a good book, a glass of wine and my fireplace. Why do you ask?”

“Because I have a challenge for you. You're in a rut and you're old before your time. You're forty-six years old and you might as well be ninety!”

“You have a...challenge...for me? And _ninety_? That seems a little harsh, even by your standards, Minerva.”

Minerva chuckled. “Harsh or not, it's true, Severus. So, I'm challenging you. I'd like you to ask Hermione out for a drink on New Year’s Eve.”

Severus went cold. “What? A drink? On New Year’s? With _me_? Are you mad, woman? And besides, you know she'll say no. She hates me; of course she does. She's a past student. They all hate me.”

Minerva watched him curiously. For a man of few words, Severus was protesting rather a lot. 

“Yes – a drink on New Year’s, with you. And I think you might be surprised by her answer. From what she very carefully _hasn't_ told me, it seems to me that you two need to talk. 

“I've ignored the way you avoided each other last term, Severus, but it can't continue. We are a small staff here at Hogwarts and it’s important that we all get along, at the very least. So whatever air needs to be cleared, clear it. That's not a request; it's a directive from your employer.”

Severus glowered. “I take it Professor Granger has been given similar instructions?”

Minerva gave a tight smile. “Yes, and she wasn't easy to persuade either.”

“Hardly _persuasion_ ,” Severus muttered under his breath. “Very well, Minerva. For the sake of my dignity I will give in peacefully. I will ask Professor Granger for a drink – and one drink only. We will imbibe our festive drink and we will return to the castle, upon which we will go our separate ways, permanently. At this point you will cease and desist in any and all attempts to have us befriend each other. Is that acceptable?” _It had better be,_ he thought, _because I've royally fucked up any chance of anything else with her._

“Perfectly acceptable. And now, finish your whisky and let's have a game of Backgammon. I'm so tired of chess.”

***  
And so, here they were at the Wand and Unicorn on New Year's Eve. 

It was, as has been stated, _excruciatingly_ awkward. 

Professor Granger either glared at him or stared at her champagne flute as if it held the fizzy key to the universe. 

He cleared his throat, opened his mouth to speak, but then caught her eye and closed his mouth meekly once more. This behaviour was unlike him, but on this occasion he knew he was in the wrong. He took a sip of his champagne. 

Chancing a glance at her once more, he was stunned to find her looking at him, not furiously but with a sort of curiosity. Her chin went up in a gesture of determination that he remembered well from the classroom. 

Severus watched in admiration as Hermione visibly gathered up her courage -- not even in his head did he sneer and call it ‘Gryffindor courage’ -- and spoke. “Severus, I thought I'd come to terms with the way you treated me after the ball. After all, it was seven years ago. But do you know what? I haven't. I'm still as hurt and bewildered as I was that morning. It's not that you rejected me romantically, you know. It's that you rejected my friendship. Why tell me about yourself only to punish me for having the knowledge that _you_ gave me? I didn't ask you to unburden yourself. I was happy to listen. I--I've always admired you and I felt, I don't know, _special_ that you chose me to talk to. And even if you didn't want me in a romantic sense, I would still have been your friend. But you didn't even want that. I still don't understand.”

Severus sat very still and silent. For seven years he had bitterly regretted his confusion and fear after talking to -- yes, and kissing -- Hermione. Somehow he knew that this was a crossroad, of sorts. He could continue plodding along the same safe, monotonous path he'd set himself on seven years ago, or he could take a punt. Go out on a limb. Risk his heart. 

Hermione opened her mouth as if to speak. He held up a hand. “Please,” he implored her. “I… I want to explain. But I want to do it properly. I need a minute.”

Hermione nodded slowly, sipping her champagne once more. 

“I am, as you probably know, a private, solitary man. I have unburdened myself exactly twice in my life. The second time was after the Victory Ball, to you.”

“And the first?” Hermione whispered.

“The first time was to Albus Dumbledore. I was on my knees, a broken man, desperate to save the woman I thought I loved. After I told him everything, although in reality it was not me telling him so much as him forcibly searching my mind for the answers he wanted, I felt drained, yet somehow cleansed. Pure, almost – if such a word could be applied to _me_. That feeling lasted perhaps five minutes. 

“The demands began. The irony was that I was happy to do anything he asked of me; I wanted to atone for my hideous mistakes. Dumbledore never believed that I was sincere about having left the service of the Dark Lord… He needed to force my hand at every turn. Never _once_ was I permitted to simply say: ‘Yes, I will perform that task because you ask it of me and I know it is right’. Always, the knife was twisted, the ropes pulled tighter. You know what he asked -- _demanded_ \-- of me in the end. After all those years in his service, doing his bidding, accepting his will – _that_ was my reward: to kill the best-loved wizard in England, and to oversee the torture of children.

“That, then, was the result of me burdening my soul for the first time. 

“Can you understand that I was _terrified_ that it would happen again? I vowed to myself that I would never allow any person to control me the way Dumbledore did. Even the Dark Lord ruled me by way of physical pain. Trust me when I say it is far less damaging than emotional torment. I don't mean to say I thought, rationally, that you were of the same ilk as Dumbledore, but I was...oh Merlin’s balls, Hermione, I was bloody terrified! In hindsight, I would have been better for that conversation to have happened a few years later than it did, after I'd had a chance to deal with some of my issues -- not all of them; there's not enough time in the world for that -- but some of them. Instead, I gave in to my fear and ran like a child. 

“And the _worst_ part is knowing that I hurt you. Knowing that love came so _near_ , and yet I turned tail like the coward I am.”

As Severus finished, he became aware of Hermione’s hand on his arm. It slowly slid down until once again she was holding his hand. 

“Oh, Severus, you're _not_ a coward. Thank you for explaining… I've wondered for years if it was me, if I scared you off, if I pushed too hard.”

“No, you didn't. You offered me everything I've ever wanted, and I stupidly threw it at your feet.”

Hermione gazed up at him. “Severus...if I picked it up again, would you take it back? Could we start again? I meant what I said that night: _I'm here_.”

Severus nodded slowly, scarcely believing his own ears. An enormous grin fought its way across his face as he leaned down towards her. He kissed her; deeply, passionately and thoroughly. This time, he knew, he wasn't going anywhere.


End file.
